Saturday, January 19, 2013

Short Story: Mirror Can Lie

You wake up, go to the bathroom and look at the mirror. And all of a sudden you get the biggest shock of your life. You have been totally transformed. You are shocked up to so large extent that for a few seconds you forget about your enlarged eyes, opened mouth and barefooted in so cold weather. What you noticed in mirror was unbelievable and astonishing.This has never happened to you, and you never thought in your life that it could happen to you ever. You just picked the stick from the corner of bathroom. This was one regular routine thing that you used to do everyday morning, first thing after waking up, going to bathroom and looking into the full length mirror after picking up your stick from the corner, you just used to ensure that the stick is reaching to your abdomen level touching ground the other end. And getting delighted that the height is intact, not increased by a centimeter.
You and I were known as the best friends in this circus. We both joined Rambo Circus 10 years back. I was of normal height and you were of extraordinary short. I still remember the amount of salary that you were offered was more than double of what I was offered. At entrance what I estimated as your limiting factor now could be understood as your biggest strength and that was your short height. Within no time you became heart of every show of the circus. Your role as a joker doing variety of jobs during the show used to steal the attention of audience and became talk of the town. Instead of a yearly increment, like all of us used to get, you started getting hefty quarterly increments.

I was always privileged that you were so simple by heart to accept me as your best friend in the camp. But you could never understand the jealousy I carried in my heart against you because of your increasing popularity, increments and awards. I wanted to do something that you stop getting such hefty amount from Rambo Circus owners. And that is what I did last night when you were sleeping. You woke up, came to the bathroom, picked your stick and looked into the mirror. That is when you got biggest shock of your life, became standstill for a few seconds, and passed away, taking last breath of your life.

Few hours later, the whole team was in your room. Circus owners had called expert doctors immediately but you were declared dead. Nobody knew the reason except two of us. You were gone and I was planning about celebrations in the evening. After all I had won the biggest battle of my life.

Nobody knows, I just cut the stick lying in your bathroom by 2 inches. The moment you looked into mirror, got astonished that you have grown in height and have lost what used to be your biggest strength. And that caused you a severe heart failure...the stick was far below the abdomen, touching ground the other end.